& Now For Something Completely Different

Meh, just playing around.

Igor's troubles began the moment he was conceived. The product of violent rape, his Mother did not want him. She birthed him in the gutter behind the whorehouse where she worked, and left him there, exposed and naked, hoping the elements would take him. But he was an insolent little vermin with blood stained skin and a vocal range that would put a full grown banshee to shame, and he did not die.

I wish I could say that Igor's mother had a change of heart, and upon hearing his desperate pleas she returned to him, cradled him up and brought him to her breast where he sampled his first life-food, but that was not to be the case. She did not come back for him at all, and if it were not for the hampering effects of the pain caused by childbirth, she would never have thought of him again.

He lay in that gutter, writhing and screaming as his skin turned to leather just like a worm's would after leaving its earthy sanctuary in the midst of a summer storm. He lay and screamed and screamed and screamed until sometime later he was plucked up out of the human urine and rat excrement, and relieved of his putrescence.

The stranger that tossed him into the hands of redemption was plump and purple skinned and had absolutely no desire to live with an infant. Igor was fed a mixture of boiled turnips and chicken stock through a thick straw that choked him and caused him to gag up everything he had managed to take in. It was a lame and futile attempt to shut the squealing infant up and with the food souring his stomach, Igor's welcome with the woman became thinner and thinner. Eventually the woman could tolerate his cries no more, and she wrapped him in an old rag that had served as a mop head, and dropped him on the stoop of the bedchamber door belonging to Father Harold; the local parishioner.

Father Harold knew as well as anyone what it meant to be ostracised and he and Igor should have had means to get along because of it. Being slight of build and ugly, and with the first name Harold, and the last name Legg, the jokes and ridicule he had suffered as a boy knew no bounds. During his years as a student, Harry Legg was the first one to be pelted by a flying ball of snow when the season allowed it, and the first to have his lunchtime gruel snatched then launched in the direction of Sister Mary-Catherine who would in turn send him to kneeling in the dirt, reciting the Lord's Prayer over and over. 

But Father Harold was a simple man of simple intelligence and with simple desires. His life consisted of prayer, sermon preparation, and overseeing the renovations that were in progress over the congregation. The parishioners respected him only because he was a man of the cloth, and being a well-disciplined community they kept their taunts and torments carefully under wraps. Father Harold had minimal patience for any wavering of the norm, and that meant he had no use for a child.

So when he was awakened from his deep slumber that night, confused and disoriented and he opened his bedchamber door, he did not know what to make of the parcel that had been delivered to him. At first he did not see the bundle and would not have known it was there if not for the sound, and the smell, but being strong of will and short of patience the infant managed to state his case in an angry and demanding bellow.

Father Harold uttered the first blasphemy of his life upon his discovery of the squirming sack of human life at his feet, unsure what he was supposed to do.

At first Father Harold considered just leaving the package where it was, and returning to his sheets where he prayed sleep would return to him. The following day was to be long and tedious and he did not have the patience to deal with the squabbling rebellion that was taking place before him on the rug. He turned back into his chamber, slowly pushing the door shut, hoping that no one had heard him rouse. He knew that if he left the infant on the stoop long enough, one of the Sisters would eventually wake and deal with it, and he would be free to get on with his day. Most of the nuns were withered old hags, it was true, but a woman was still a woman, and women knew what to do with babies.

But as he turned the handle, preparing the latch on the door, thinking of the heat of his fire and the softness of his mattress, the baby became quiet.

Father Harold froze in his retreat, knowing that if the baby did not cause a ruckus, it would not be discovered, and if it was not discovered, he would be forced to deal with it in the morning. The Father let out a sigh, exasperated and disbelieving at how cruel the world could be. He needed a plan.

Father Harold decided to get the riff-raff over with as quickly as he could. He knelt down, picked up the child, holding it rigidly out at arm’s length so as not to let it touch his clean bed-clothes, and he padded down the hall toward the chamber of Sister Mary-Teresa who was resting peacefully in her bed, completely oblivious to the goings-on of the night.

Father Harold rapped smartly on the door leading into the private chamber. Sister Mary-Teresa was startled at first, but soon discerned that if someone was at her door at such a late hour, it must be important. So she scrambled out of her bed and to the door and when Sister Mary-Teresa saw the package that was thrust upon her, her only reaction was to have a massive heart-attack and die.

Father Harold swore for the second time in his life, but not because of the termination of poor Sister Mary-Teresa. No, Father Harold was upset because she'd had the gall to go and die before she could tell him what to do with the little monster in his arms. It was most out-putting. So Father Harold continued on down the hall, hoping that he would have better luck at the next entrance he came to.

The second room in his path belonged to Sister Sarafina, a young nun who had only been housed in his parish a few short weeks. Father Harold hesitated before knocking on this door, not sure if it was prudent to raise the woman he barely knew. But the baby he was holding had gone completely silent and he was sure that if he did not unload it sometime soon, it would be morning and he would be stuck with it.

The young Sister was not difficult to wake, and as soon as her door cracked open, Father Harold shoved the infant at her, and turned on his heel, executing a perfect hasty retreat. Sister Sarafina scarcely caught a glance of his night robe as he rounded the corner leading to his own private rooms, the fabric flailing out at the bottom like a magician's cape.

Sister Sarafina stood in her doorway a moment longer, the fog of sleep still thick in her mind, before she realized what had happened. The Father had given her a charge, and being eager to impress her new overseer, she pressed the baby to her chest and plodded gently back into her room, singing softly as she shut the door.

She took the infant to her bed and undid its disgustingly soiled bindings. She found that not only was there evidence of typical neglect and miscare stained on the rag, but the baby was so thin and wasted she wondered if it was truly a human at all, and not a product of the devil himself.

"Sweet Jesus!" she exclaimed when she took in the naked monstrosity before her, then quickly covered her mouth with her hands, hoping the lord had not heard her. She cleared her throat unnecessarily then said in a quieter voice that she hoped oozed with maternal wisdom, "Well then wee one, it is just you and me. Let's get you cleaned up and fed, and we will decide what to do about you then hmm?"

The baby cooed.

Sister Sarafina filled her basin with the water she'd warmed earlier in the evening to make her nightly tea. She pulled a soft blanket from her trunk and ripped it in half, planning one part to become a towel, and the other, a clean swaddling blanket. She took the baby to the basin and lowered him in.

As the grime and muck and fecal material melted off of Igor's body, Sister Sarafina's demeanour began to deteriorate. She was not a judgemental person, and prided herself on being open-minded, but what she saw emerge before her was such a shock, she gagged with disgust.

Igor was thin and tiny and the lack of nourishment that had occurred in his short life was in high evidence, and that was disturbing, but what had made the good Sister's stomach flip with repulsion was the baby itself.

Igor's mother'd had a difficult life and had been forced to make some difficult decisions. She was short and thick waisted with thin wiry brown hair and no breasts to speak of.  She had been the victim of multiple abuses at the hands of her father and mother, and had left home at an early age. Prostitution had been the only profession her low intelligence level had allowed her, and she had started in the industry at the age of twelve. She had contracted gonorrhoea twice and had a flaming case of herpes that would not remedy itself. She had head lice almost constantly and had not cleaned her teeth since she was a child. She indulged in drugs on a daily basis, and the habit had not stopped when she found out she was pregnant. She did not have the resources to abort the baby properly, so she had tried to take care of it herself. The process had nearly killed her, and the severity of the injury to Igor's tender body was in evidence when he was born.

Igor's head was too large for his body and shaped like a moon with his chin and forehead sitting on a different lateral plain then his cheeks. His hair was thin and black and grew only in patches. His skin was discoloured and blotchy and held no trace of the newborn softness that babies are famous for. His right ear was noticeably larger than his left and his left eye was set higher than the right. His mouth was thin and crooked and matched the angle of his downward sloping eyebrows.

Igor's back was curved to the side and his left leg was longer than the right by several inches. His feet were odd sized and inward pointing and his toes were thickly webbed. His arms were thin and short and his hands were big and cumbersome. When he wailed, sister Sarafina could see that his tongue was tied securely to the bottom of his mouth, which she knew would lead to difficulty in regards to eating and speaking in later life.

The Sister blinked her bleary eyes, silently reprimanding herself for her judgement of this poor helpless infant. She knew he had not asked to be so hideous, but she was not pure enough to see past it. She assigned herself a round of 'Hail Mary's" and decided to get the bath over with as soon as she could, so that she could cover the baby's body up and not have to look at it anymore.

She pulled the wretched prune-skinned child out of the murky tub and wrapped it so tightly it couldn't move. She felt a little better as soon as she could not see its loose skin and sinister form and was satisfied at having done a good deed before the light of day had even breeched the horizon. Since her relocation she had felt short on good-deeds, and this was bound to make up for it.

Next the Sister took the baby to the kitchen where she found the spoils that graced the cupboards; the products of those sinners who seeked to buy their salvation with material sweetness. Although it was a sin for her to know it, Sister Sarafina had discovered in the previous weeks the gifts of one particular adulterous individual who owned a milking goat. It was fresh, this milk, and smelled of honey and Sister Sarafina spent a moment considering how wasteful it was to indulge the little daemon in her arms with the fruits of the Lord. Then she shook her head, reminding herself that even this intruder was a child of God, and if nothing else, that made him half-ways worthy.

Sister Sarafina took a bottle from the cold storage, tucked it high in her armpit, and plodded back down the sleepy hallway.  By the time she reached her chamber door, the milk was warmed slightly from its storage next to her bosom, and her physical exertion over carrying her burden hither and thither on the walkway.

Igor ate ravenously. After two days of life this was his first proper meal and the shock of its richness on his system caused him a moment of ecstasy-induced paralysis. He was so famished, in fact, that as soon as he got over the initial uncontrolled glee at the act of eating, he bit and lunged at the serving spoon the sister offered him, causing her a great deal of unrest. His arms flailed, his legs splayed and his breathing transformed itself into a wild snorting that sounded not so dissimilar to that of a warthog that had gone to ground. He ate and ate and ate until finally it seemed he got his fill because just before he reached the bottom of the canister, he fell off into a quiet and peaceful slumber.

The Sister smiled, impressed with her skill as nurse and provider, reckoning herself a bit of a natural. She watched the babe who was now snoring loudly in her arms, and noticed that if she covered him just so, he almost looked normal while deep in the grips of sleep. She rested her back on the uncomfortable rigidity of the hard, wooden chair she had sat down in to feed the child, and she closed her eyes.


Sister Sarafina woke to a stiff neck and a sour taste that was spread thickly over her tongue. She had not been comfortable in the chair where she had fallen asleep, and at some point during the night she had fallen clean off of it and onto the floor, completely unawares. She tried to rub her head in the attempt to force her brain into functionality, but the action was in vain, because Sister Sarafina's arm was completely dead-asleep and just flopped limply off of her shoulder, an irritating hindrance.

At first she thought the events of the following night to have been a nightmare. Surely Father Harold had not come to her, handing over a ghoulish fiend, expecting her to care for it. It was absurd. Preposterous! Outrageous. Completely irrational, but yet, it seemed so real. She hauled herself up off the ground and walked over to her dresser.

Sister Sarafina's scream could be heard miles away. It echoed through the abbey, into the graveyard that surrounded it, and through the city streets. The sound was at the same time round and full, but also deflating and hollow. It was the sound of eerie, gut-wrenching, raw terror that had a way of growing the further it travelled. It reverberated through the abbey’s great tower and caused the bells to sound out their own mournful cry.

As sister Sarafina screamed out her vexation at having confirmed her misery, Father Harold regressed deep into the depths of his chamber. Being the leader of his flock of believers, Father Harold should have been an exemplary figure of Christian ideology. He should have been free of sin, or as free as any free-thinking man could possibly be, but that was not the case. For Father Harold was a sinner.

Author's Note

Unedited, this is a work in progress...